A Taste of Love and Evil (14 page)

His voice was so low, so weak, even she could barely hear
him. “I figured you would assume he knew about the camo. Please don’t mention it when you pick up your package.”

“No problem,” Rose said.

“Thanks. And…” Jack’s voice drifted to nothing.

“I won’t mention it to anybody.” Anger spiraled through her anew. God, she was tired of being angry. “You want to keep it secret, right?”

“Yes,” he said. “Please.”

“You should know by now—” She stopped midsentence and took a breath. She might be furious, she might be hurt beyond bearing, but she was not about to lose her temper again, nor control of her voice. “—that I can be trusted to keep a secret.”

“I do know.” A long, long pause. “I owe you, Rose. I owe you big. I’ll add you to my tally of pay-forwards. You can count on that.”

Oh, for God’s sake. Did he understand nothing? Childishness kicked in. “Good-bye forever.”

She turned to go, but her cell phone rang. Who would call at just past six a.m.? She glanced at the unfamiliar number on the display and opened the phone. “Yes?”

“Rose! At last, it’s just you and me.”

Oh, shit. Titania.

“We need to have a little talk.” A sneer with syrup on top.

Rose didn’t bother keeping her voice civil. “I have no reason to speak to you, Titania. Your manipulation of Miles is disgusting.”

Beside her, Jack burst out of camouflage to loom stark and harsh beside her, eyes cutting into her, fully intent. What was
with
this guy?

Titania gave a dreadful trickle of laughter. “Jealousy won’t change a thing. That boss of yours is so hot for me I couldn’t get a minute to myself until he finally passed out.”

“He’s not my boss anymore.” Rose stepped briskly around Jack and stalked onto the roof.

“Damn it, Rose!” Jack hissed and followed. She ignored him.

More horror-story laughter. “Poor, poor Miles. He’s very upset with you and not at all well. The stress of a failing business was already weakening him, and to top it off, you refused my generous offer.”

“I didn’t refuse it. I merely set terms by which to protect Miles.”

“Offensive terms, Rose. How will you live with yourself, knowing you could have helped him rebuild his life but didn’t?”

“He was doing fine until you came along.”

A rancid chuckle dripped across the airwaves. “He’ll tell you an entirely different story. He’s completely over his boring, dead wife now. He’ll never get over me, of course, but the new tricks I’ve taught him will pay off for you.”

Ick.
Ick.
Rose paced across the roof, Jack hovered, and against the backdrop of roofs and sky, Constantine stilled.

Titania syruped on. “You’re too tall for a girl and totally ordinary, but he’ll take you back if I say so. He’ll even want to sleep with you, because after being my love slave he’ll need plenty. Not that you could ever satisfy him, but you’ll be better than nothing.”

Rose swung around and paced again. “Are you planning on saying something interesting, or should I hang up right now?”

Titania tsked. “You’re digging yourself deeper and deeper, Rose. You may have fooled Miles, but you can’t fool me. I
know exactly what you’re up to and where you’re going. Your only hope is to accept my help.”

Jack must have lost interest in eavesdropping, because he was watching Constantine now. Rose supposed she should be relieved. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“How about forgiveness, Rose? I’m not a good person to cross.”

“You’re not a good person at all.”

Her voice was full of venom. “This is your last chance, Rose.”

“This isn’t some stupid melodrama. You don’t scare me.” She slapped the phone shut.

Half Jack’s mind absorbed Rose’s side of the phone conversation, while the other opened tentatively to Constantine Du-fray. While they watched, the rock star had sent a terrifying amount of rage into the dawn sky. Now, most of what Jack sensed was exhaustion.

If he’d ever had a doubt that it was Constantine who’d sent those random telepathic knocks, starting a few years after he’d vanished from the Rez, he didn’t now. Jack knew from their childhood friendship that Constantine could plant thoughts in other people’s minds. Fortunately, Jack was able to recognize and block those thoughts if he chose. Occasionally there’d been dreams as well, horrific visions rife with hatred and fear. Then, shortly after Constantine’s ill-fated marriage, Jack woke in an agony of black, twisted misery, suffocating in hopelessness, certain he would never move, never live or love, never save anyone again. He hadn’t been going through the best of times, but Jack knew the feelings weren’t his. He’d steeled himself to refuse any more of Constantine’s thoughts, when all contact suddenly ceased. Until now.

Constantine stared at him across the rooftops, unmoving, expressionless, as far as Jack could tell. Did he want further
contact, or was he pissed off at this intrusion into his private rage?

Jack couldn’t afford to ignore Constantine—hell, he didn’t want to—but Rose, God help her, was way out of her league with Titania. That was his first priority, so old-fashioned signals would have to do. In the ageless gesture of one helpless man to another, he indicated, with a wide swath of his good arm, the crazy, endangered woman pacing his rooftop.

Constantine made a gun with his hand and got Rose in his sights.
Pow.
He spread his hands.
Problem solved.

Jack shot him the bird in response, but Constantine was already swiveling away.

Rose was on the stairs. Jack followed. “Problems?” he asked.

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

She hurried through the attic and bedroom. She’d already packed her suitcases and moved them out of Jack’s room to stand by the apartment door. She really was planning to leave. And she wasn’t afraid of Titania. Jack shuddered at this insanity, following her into the kitchen.

She whirled. “I’m not on the phone anymore, so you don’t need to dog my every step.”

“I’m going to make breakfast,” Jack said, suiting action to his words. He filled the kettle and started on a batch of oatmeal muffins. Rose just stood there, as if unsure what to do next. She peeked out through the gap in the curtains. She leaned against the wall, turning her phone over and over in her hands. She separated the curtains, revealing the pink wash of sunrise. Not as unconcerned as she pretended, then.

Jack put the first batch of muffins in the oven, then opened the cupboard and took out an elegant little Rosenthal teapot, white with a whimsical golden top, with cups and saucers and a creamer and sugar bowl to match.

“Oh!” Rose plopped herself down at the table and reached for the sugar bowl with reverent hands. “Magic Flute!”

“That’s right,” Jack said, immensely pleased with himself.
Trying to impress her, are you? You could have used the old
Brown
Betty.
He ignored the nagging little voice, warmed the pot, spooned in his favorite Darjeeling blend, and filled the teapot with boiling water. He set a tattered wool cozy over it.
So there.

“What a shame to cover it. It needs its own custom-made cozy.” But Rose’s mind clearly wasn’t dwelling on a different kind of tea cozy. She clasped her hands together and unclasped them.

Jack prepared the pan for the second batch of muffins, spooned the batter into the cups, and washed the dishes. Rose just sat there.

Jack rinsed his face and hands—not that it helped the ranker areas of his body—and sat across from her. “The set used to belong to my mother. My parents have lived apart most of my life, and my dad sends her a couple of tea sets a year. I inherited her taste for tea, so she passes some of them on to me.” He filled their cups and offered her the sugar. “It’s a little ornate for my taste.”

“Oh, no,” Rose said. “It’s absolutely beautiful.”

Inspiration thwacked him. “Would you like to have the set? It’s yours.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, all the pleasure draining away. “You don’t owe me.”

Hell. “Damn it, Rose, that’s not why—”

Her cell phone rang again.

“Now what?” Rose snarled into the phone. Jack set down his cup, picked up the teapot, and moved it to safety on the counter.

“Have I upset you?” oozed Titania. “I hope so.”

No, that’s Jack’s privilege.
Rose stood, grabbed her teacup before he could confiscate that as well, and paced out of the
kitchen. Scalding tea slopped over the brim. She took a gulp, sucked up the pain, and continued across the living room past the oblivious Juma and back again, counting the steps until she could trust herself to speak.

In spite of a humming background noise and the occasional static, Titania’s smug delight came through clearly. “Rose, do you have any idea who I am and what I can do?”

Rose gripped her teacup. How to answer that? No way would she give up the advantage of Titania’s ignorance.

As it turned out, the question was rhetorical, and this time silence worked in her favor. “Let’s just say I’m a very dangerous person,” Titania continued. “And that I’m as creative with punishment as I am with sex. Gino, find someplace fast! I have to pee.”

Huh? She must be in a car, which would explain the hum. “Get to the point, or I’ll hang up again.” Rose took a swig of tea, burned the roof of her mouth, and glared at the pretty, hapless little cup.

Titania gave a huge, fake, long-suffering sigh. “In spite of your insults, I’ve been kind to you so far. I didn’t tell Miles you stole the gown, and I convinced him to hold off on calling the cops. Gino, if you don’t find a rest area in a hurry, you’ll be sorry.”

In a car on a highway. On the way here? Rose let out a breath. At least Miles was all right, safe by himself in Chicago.

She heard the low rumble of a male voice in the background, so low even she couldn’t pick it up, and Titania’s raspy giggle. “That would be fun.” Then, abruptly: “Some other time. I’m in a hurry today.”

“Get
on
with it,” Rose said. Jack was right next to her, eavesdropping as usual, or maybe he just wanted to protect his mommy’s cup so he could offer it to someone else he felt he owed.

“Fine,” Titania said. “I’m getting bored with all this kindness, so I’ll lay it on the line. If you deliver that gown to Violet Dupree, I’ll tell Miles you connived with Violet to bankrupt him. He’ll be devastated. He has such touching confidence in you. I wouldn’t be surprised if the truth killed him.”

Rose’s heart lurched. She set the teacup in Jack’s outstretched palm and mustered her cool. “How would that benefit you? You still wouldn’t have the gown.”

“You admit that you stole it?”

“I didn’t steal anything,” Rose said.

“That’s just semantics. I know you have the gown and I know you’re bringing it to Violet. Why not be as frank with me as I am with you?”

“How would that benefit me?” volleyed Rose. “I’m a practical woman, just like you. Breaking promises doesn’t pay off, so when I’ve made a promise, I keep it. As far as I’m concerned, you can take your ego trips, threats, and slavery fantasies and go fuck yourself.” She shut the phone again.

“Anything I can do to help?” Jack handed back Rose’s tea.

“No.” She had barely raised the cup to her lips when the phone rang again. Rose let it ring while she took another bracing gulp of tea. She flipped the phone open and snarled, “Already finished fucking yourself? That was quick.”

Jack’s dimple flashed as he took her cup again. He set it gently on the table.

Titania’s voice bit into that small moment of humor. “Listen, you stupid bitch. The second I tell him to, Miles will call the cops in Bayou Gavotte, and they’ll throw you in jail. Don’t fool yourself into thinking Violet will protect you. She’ll deny everything, pay off the cops like she always does, and keep the gown. My
gown.”

No,
my
gown.
Rose dug a fang into her lower lip to stop herself from screaming the words out loud.

A car door slammed, and Titania said, “I’ll give you a
couple of hours to think about it. Don’t think you can rush over to Violet’s place and then pretend you didn’t. I’m watching your every move.”

Rose wrenched her fang out of her lip. “Oh,
please,”
she said, licking up her own blood. “I’m not afraid of you or your creative punishment or anything else.”

“You will be.” Titania hung up.

Rose closed her phone and turned it off. Poor Miles, so far away and all alone, believing that witch’s lies.

“Rose,” Jack said.

“What?” She barely managed not to wail, or scream, or cry. “Why can’t you mind your own business? Just because you have a rescue complex, it doesn’t mean you have to try saving me.”

Jack recoiled. “Rescue complex?”

Rose flapped a hand. “At least it leads you to help people, but you don’t really like what you’re doing, and when it comes to me, you have to force yourself just to be civil. I’m not saying you don’t mean well—you do, of course you do—but you don’t genuinely
care.”
She retrieved her cup and swallowed the rest of the tea in one gulp.

“Of course I care. I wouldn’t be wasting my time on all these idiotic women if I didn’t care.”

He was immediately sorry, because amusement lit her eyes. “I rest my case. Thanks for the offer of breakfast, but I have to run.”

“No,” Jack said. “You don’t. Not until we’ve had a little talk.”

She set the cup on the table. “About what?

He took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to like this, but rescue complex or not, he did have to take care of her: regardless of how she’d first gotten into this mess, she knew nothing about Titania, or she’d be terrified. “About Violet Dupree, and why you need to think carefully before getting any more involved with her.”

Her amusement faded. Her fangs peeked out. “What do you know about Violet?”

“Enough to know that she has dragged you into one of her vampire feuds. You need to leave town and set up somewhere far away while you have the chance. I’ll relocate you and deliver the gown to Violet in your stead.”

“You can’t do that. The gown is nowhere near finished. It has to be fitted, and—Damn it, how come you know so much?” The tips of her fangs gleamed.

“What is it for, a Mardi Gras ball?” Jack asked. “There’s plenty of time for Violet to find someone else to finish the gown. Your safety is far more important.”

“You know
way
too much for my liking.” She poked a finger into his chest. “How come? Huh?” Her fangs were down now, close, sharp, and bloody distracting.

Memory tugged at his loins of succumbing, utterly and completely, to Titania’s allure. The pierce of her fangs, followed by such a rush of pleasure that…

No.

“If it was that dangerous, why didn’t Violet say so?”

All it takes is control,
he told himself.
Just tell her what you know.
“Maybe she didn’t want to scare you by telling you, but she sent me to that hotel to make sure you were safe, and that you got to Bayou Gavotte in one piece.”

“Oh, really?” Rose sucked up her fangs, walked away to get her handbag, and returned. “Then why didn’t you tell me that?”